Vicious cycle

He’s probably not too excited about Diamond either

There’s nothing like a good Jason Dill interview really. He’s frequently semi-coherent, names names and talks shit freely, and he seems to have a really good memory in spite of how much drugs he’s supposed to have done. I was thinking the other day actually how it’s been a while since Dill shot his mouth off and lo and behold, Don Pendleton talked to him for a feature at Black Lodges, a webzine/online artist collective of sorts that features a blog by Eric Stricker, presumably moonlighting from TWS message board supervision.

Most of the interview involves Dill waxing Dillish on Polaroids, his grandma’s photo albums and being vaguely heartbroken, but at one point Pendleton gets him going on the topic of streetwear and his own streetwear company Fucking Awesome. Then the cantankerous Dill materializes, nursing a serious case of seller’s remorse:

Yes, I am a cynical fuck. I can’t stand the brands that are out here. That’s why I killed my brand for a while. But every time I try to kill Fucking Awesome, I end up bringing it back and people are asking for more. I can’t stand these fucking brands. I can’t stand any of that streetwear horse shit anymore. I can’t believe I ever got into it. It is what it is, you know.
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Like, I made a clothing company and I’ve got fucking skateboard rappers wearing it. And I’ve got Paris Hilton’s latest boyfriend wearing it on the E! Channel or whatever. I don’t want that. And people wearing it on the covers of their fucking lame albums. Fucking dumb. I hate everything.
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Yeah, when I first did Fucking Awesome, it took off like a rocket. One day it was just our funny little thing and it was fun….we were selling it through Supreme and they helped me launch it and get it out there. I remember the guys at Supreme were like, ‘Enjoy yourself now because it’s going to suck eventually.’ And I was like, ‘It’s not gonna suck.’ But yeah, it really sucks now.

Certain of us could be like “well, what did you think would happen,” but we all know that accomplishes little besides maybe chalking up a couple internet snark points. But it reminded me of a similar hard-learned lesson learned about a decade ago by one of Dill’s bosses, Mike Hill, about not being able to choose your audience and seeing your baby co-opted by retards. From Sean Cliver’s “Disposable”:

The success of the alien graphics came gradually. It started out as a cult following but then developed into a trendy nightmare. People would tell me how our shirts were really popular with ravers. This was the last thing the Alien Workshop was about–a bunch of overly social people dancing to techno while dressed for year-round trick-or-treating–and it was quite devastating.

One day a shop account called and said Madonna had just been in their store and bought one of our shirts. He was all excited and thought we should be, too. I remember going berserk and screaming about why would they sell it to her, that they should have denied her. But you can’t control these things. It happens to bands all the time: the people who drove you away to the point of marking something yourself out of frustration end up your customers.

5 Responses to “Vicious cycle”

I asked the dude at my local streetwear store if Fucking Awesome (I remember some of the shit being funny and/or cool…fuckingawesome.net has not been operational for a while) was still around. He did not know. Based on the above interview, it would seem like Dill himself does not know. It would appear that Dill’s approach to business is similar to his approach to life.
Whatevs…